Good ol' boy mentality is what killed Lowe's plan

Monday

Jan 27, 2014 at 2:10 AM

Shame on the Cape Cod Commission for voting down the Lowe's project in Dennis.

Shame on the Cape Cod Commission for voting down the Lowe's project in Dennis.

The "good ol' boy" mentality of Cape Cod is unbelievable to me. This anti-competitive attitude that's pervasive throughout the Cape is hurting residents, not helping them. Because of the "efforts" of a few independent hardware/home improvement stores, all the rest of the residents suffer by paying higher prices and getting limited hours of operation along with poor service in return.

Stop & Shop co-exists with Friends Market; Cooke's Seafood thrives with Papa Gino's and Wendy's nearby; Nauset Surf Shop does just fine with TJ Maxx and Olympia Sports right around the corner. I can list several other examples of "chains" doing business alongside local merchants. These merchants offer products and services that their larger competitors don't, so people do business with them. That's how free markets work!

Here are questions residents should be asking themselves: Why is this small group of bureaucrats deciding Lowe's fate, anyway? Why wasn't this an addendum on the ballot in November for Cape residents to decide? How do we know that the commission members weren't "persuaded" to vote a certain way? This lack of transparency is what's wrong with local politics. Wake up, people.

Chris DeRizzo

Brewster

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